ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book expands the scope of racial theorizing by attending to the multisensory dimensions of race, racialization, and racism. The visual dimension of racial experience is pervasive and undeniable: race functions as a visual economy of difference in which visible phenotypes are coded into hierarchical social relations. As a multidisciplinary effort, the sensory turn in social sciences and humanities articulates and accounts for the dynamic and complex interrelationships between culture and the senses. Extending the sensory perspectives into studying race, various scholars have contributed to this emergent and growing body of knowledge by foregrounding the senses as the medium through which racial worlds are constructed and experienced.